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The Last Selection: A Child's Journey through the Holocaust

When the Holocaust ended, so ended also the infamous "selections" of Dr. Josef Mengele, at the Auschwitz death camp. But just before it ended, there was "the last selection." Goldie Szachter Kalib, at the time a 13-year old Jewish girl from Bodzentyn, Poland, and her mother were in it. In The Last Selection: A Child's Journey through the Holocaust, by Goldie Szachter Kalib, with Sylvan Kalib and Ken Wachsberger, Goldie describes her life through World War II, from her idyllic childhood in Bodzentyn, Poland, to hiding with a Polish Christian family, to the slave camp, to Auschwitz, to life in the gas chamber, to Bergen-Belsen, and then to liberation. Portions of this book were used in the ABC Daytime Emmy-Award Winning movie on children in the Holocaust.

"Kalib's child's eye view of Auschwitz's maniacal orderliness and the world's-end chaos of Bergen-Belsen makes a useful complement to [Anne Frank's] famous diary. At a time when revisionists are running ads in college newspapers claiming the Holocaust is a hoax, this affecting memoir should go into every high-school and college library"—Kirkus Reviews

"This haunting memoir records the experiences of a young Jewish girl forced to confront the horrors of the Holocaust. [Kalib's] account begins with a rare portrait of Jewish life in a small Polish town in the 1930s. She details the events that shattered the world of her youth, beginning with the Nazi invasion and occupation of her hometown, Bodzentyn. She hid with a family of Polish Christians until the suspicions of neighbors forced her to leave. Eventually, she and her entire family were sent to Auschwitz where her parents, two brothers, and 24 other members of her family perished."—Menorah Review

"An excellent, finely written history of a village, its people, and one family's courage and perseverance against overwhelming odds."—Women's Library Workers Journal

"This is an absorbing story of a young girl, robbed of childhood but lucky enough to survive the Holocaust. Reviewing her ordeal in vivid detail, Kalib offers an uncommonly accurate portrait of wartime Poland….I highly recommend this richly textured reminiscence."—Abraham H. Foxman, National Director, Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith

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